A Month In The Life Of This Filmmaker

Okay, I started with A Day In The Life...that became A Week In The Life....now, it's A Month In The Life.... Do you see a trend?

The problem is, I'm not a natural blogger. Some people blog incessantly. Little short snippets of things all throughout the day, week, month, etc. Others write big long pieces that are basically like articles (more my style) on a very consistent basis. Me, I'm very inconsistent because I am not a journalist or blogger. I'm just a filmmaker who works within a specific community that has served me very well and feels an obligation to that community to share what I learn and experience.

So, that's my lame explanation. Along with an apology to those of you who want to check in on this blog regularly. Hope you can forgive...or at least understand - even my inconsistency fills you with bitter disappointment.

So, what have I been doing this past month?

Well, July-August is always a crazy time because of our big event, VisionFest, which I won't go into here (see my next blog), suffice it to say that it eats up a BIG chunk of my time and energy.

But attendant to that event were actually a couple of additional, but very exciting, CREATIVE demands. Two of the films in VisionFest needed a bit of accelerated effort to ensure they would be ready for the event. Specifically, they faced some editing challenges and I was asked to participate in that process in a very hands-on way. Wow, did that feel good! I was allowed to take their filmic sculptures and do some real work with them, getting my hands good and dirty. I was in there cutting this and shaving that, pulling out this piece, re-ordering those other pieces, etc., etc. And always in collaboration with the film's creative team. It was like really good group sex (I imagine, of course). I did it again later on in the month on close friend and co-worker Amanda Sweikow's latest piece of twisted genius. And with that one, I even got to play with sound extensively. I get to do it yet again very soon on a full feature project I'm sort of helping to produce, Kerry Prior's "The Revenant".

I can tell you how stimulating and inspiring this creative work is for me - especially given the amount of fundraising, managerial and administrative stuff I have to do. It reminds me that I am a filmmaker and how much I absolutely LOVE the process...and it's challenges.

Nonetheless, another big non-filmmaking (but film-related) project was/is on my plate. But this one fills me with breathless enthusiasm. As I mentioned in an earlier blog (the one on Community), we are building the web-based Global version of Filmmakers Alliance and a number of pieces of it needed to be put in place along with a fully fleshed-out plan/proposal. That work is necessary to lock in our funding and to clarify what we are doing for all the folks who will be involved. And there are many. The site will be an filmmaker (and eventually film audience) uber-site with everything - including the kitchen sink - a filmmaker could possibly need and access online...along with a few innovative personal creative tools as well as...*NEW PHRASE BEING COINED HERE*...."SOCIAL CREATIVITY" tools.

What is this new-fangled term "Social Creativity?" Well, you've heard of social networking. You join some site like MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, whatever...and you...well,...socialize. Social Creativity is not much different, only you do it with a creative purpose. It's creative collaboration and/or creative community support for your own project. It's not unlike having a feedback screening of your work-in-progress film or sending out your script to friends to get notes. Only we take it one step further...and it all (or mostly) happens online. That's all I'll say for now, other than...it will ROCK!

I also did my much-loved annual sojourn to the Palm Springs Shortsfest, the details of which you can also find in one of my soon-upcoming blog posts.

The month closed with my creative collaborator Sean Hood lighting a fire under my ass to finish my next feature script. He read me the riot act and then laid out for me his fool-proof plan for getting the script (not just a script, but a GREAT script) completed, even if you have a schedule - like mine - filled with unavoidable distractions/obligations. It seems to be working like a charm as I've already leap-frogged over what was stopping me and I'm suddenly standing under a waterfall of fresh ideas. I or Sean will detail the formula in another blog post. I don't want to bury that good information here...

That's it, for now. Got another busy month ahead including Independent Film Week in NYC. Ahh, the filmmaker's life. I love it.